


You'll Love Me At Once

by nerdwegian



Series: Tumblr Prompts [24]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Prompt, crazy dream stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdwegian/pseuds/nerdwegian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Man, you know how to sleep," the man says, directly from Steve's right.</p>
<p>(Tumblr prompt: Steve/Sam, meet in a dream.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Love Me At Once

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Laura for the beta.

Steve flickers in and out. He doesn't know how else to describe it. The darkness just--comes and goes.

He's very cold.

*

He sees Bucky sometimes, like through a fog. "Bucky!" he calls, reaching, stretching, but never getting there in time. Bucky's mouth is wide open as he falls, caught in a scream that somehow has no sound.

*

"Hell, I'll always fight," Dum Dum says, "but you gotta do one thing for me."

Steve smiles. "What's that?"

Dum Dum drains his glass and belches loudly, beer breath wafting across the table. "Open a tab."

Everyone at the table laughs. Steve laughs. Looks around for Bucky, but can't find him.

Across the room, a black man is leaning against the bar, watching Steve with a smile he can't decipher. Amusement, maybe? Steve gives him a polite smile in return, and the man tilts his head a little, as if confused. Steve frowns. Does he know this man?

The bar fades around him, and Peggy is there, looking down at him. From where he sits, it's like being scrawny again.

"You won't be alone," she tells him, words soothing and warm, one hand cupping his cheek gently.

Steve closes his eyes and cries, and he thinks the tears might turn to ice on his cheeks.

*

The metal is so shiny Steve can see his own reflection in it. The--whatever this is, an airplane, maybe?--is huge, futuristic, like a floating castle. There are no people anywhere.

"Hello!" Steve says loudly, but doesn't get so much as an echo back.

A falcon lands on a crate next to him, and Steve regards it with mild amusement. It's the closest he's ever been to a wild bird. "I thought you were supposed to be shy," he says.

"I thought you were supposed to be dead," the falcon says back.

Steve's limbs grow suddenly cold. "Aren't I?" he asks.

"I dunno, man, this is your fucked up dream, figure it out," the falcon says, then takes off. Steve watches it until it's nothing more than a dot in the sky.

*

"Let's dance," Bucky says, and leads his date out onto the floor.

"Have fun," Steve mumbles, not even looking up.

"What, you don't like dancing, or something?" a voice asks, and Steve raises his head. The man who's looking down at him seems amused, but not like he's mocking. Steve knows this man. He's sure of it.

"I don't see anyone offering," Steve says, bolder than he meant to.

The guy looks down at Steve and places a hand on his shoulder. "Want me to teach you?"

Steve looks around. Across the room, there's a woman in red, brown hair falling softly towards her shoulders. She's not looking his way. "I think I'm supposed to wait," Steve tells the stranger.

"For how long?" the stranger asks, but he sounds like he already knows the answer, which is absurd.

*

There are so many _people_ everywhere.

Steve looks up at the sky, and resists the urge to catch snowflakes on his tongue, like when he was a child. He stands nearly a full head above most people, now. He wonders if he'd be warmer if he was shorter again, and could disappear in the crowd.

"Man, you know how to sleep," the man from the bar says, directly from Steve's right.

"You're the one who keeps crashing my dreams," Steve says, smiling a little.

The guy nudges a shoulder into Steve's. "When you say it like that, it sounds like I'm hitting on you."

"Are you?" Steve asks, genuinely curious.

Around them, the crowd has gone faceless. The man regards Steve for a long time. "I'm Sam," he eventually says.

"I knew a guy named Sam once," Steve says, digging deep for a memory he can't quite grasp.

"Did you," Sam says flatly.

Something glints in the crowd, like metal and chrome, and a flash of red. Steve cranes his neck, trying to see. "There's something out there," he tells Sam. "Someone." He reached behind his back and pulls down his shield, body tensing for a fight.

"I don't see anything," Sam says, shrugging.

"There's someone out there," Steve repeats.

Next to him, Sam gives him an easy smile and nudges his shoulder again. "Well, then. Let's go get him. Never leave a fallen man behind, right?"

*

Bucky falls and falls, and Steve can't catch him, and then later, Steve falls too.

He hopes the water and the ice closing around him will feel peaceful, but the feeling never comes. Fear claws its way up his throat, paralyzes him and makes him struggle helplessly, limbs sluggish and weighed down by the cold.

"You won't be alone." Peggy's voice rings in his ears, but she's wrong. Steve's all alone.

*

"So, is this my dream or yours?" Steve asks the next time he sees Sam, leaning against a wall on the deck of the flying castle.

"I think it's yours," Sam says, eyeing Steve appreciatively. "If it was mine, you'd already be naked and doing-- _stuff_ to me."

It's so unexpected, Steve bursts out laughing, and he walks over to stand in front of Sam, leaning one hand on the wall like he's seen Bucky do with girls.

"Well, if it's mine, doesn't it mean I can do whatever the hell I want?"

"And what does Captain America want?" Sam asks, smiling.

Steve considers. "To feel warm."

Sam's kisses are soft and hot, and Steve feels warm into his core for the first time in what feels like forever.

*

"So what are we supposed to do?" Morita asks. "I mean it's not like we can just knock on the front door."

The anger feels distant, but Steve remembers it. It bubbles under his skin. Rage like he's never felt. He sinks into it. It feels nice.

"Why not?" he says.

The whole table is staring at him, and he looks at the plans and the maps and the photos, and has made his decision.

"That's exactly what we're gonna do."

Later, Sam stops him on his way out of the room, with a hand on his arm. "Are you sure you want to do this, Cap?"

Steve stares. "Stop following me."

Sam gives him a fond look. "Then who will keep your punk ass out of trouble?"

Steve thinks about Bucky and ice stabs at him. The bunker fades away, and Sam puts a hand on Steve's cheek. "Captain America needs my help," he says, sounding sad.

"Captain America needs help," Steve corrects him, pulling him close and kissing him deeply, and mumbling into the kiss, "Help, please, help," but Sam's gone and there's nothing there but the icy water.

*

"Time's up," Peggy whispers seductively into his ear.

"Bucky," Steve moans. His eyelids are so heavy. He can't seem to get them open.

"Time's up," Peggy repeats. Her voice has an odd beeping quality to it. Something's happening. Something's happening, and Steve doesn't know what it is, and it's distressing. If he could only open his eyes--

"This isn't a fairytale, just so we're clear," Sam says firmly into Steve's right ear. "I'm not kissing you so you can wake up. I'm just kissing you because I goddamn want to."

_That's okay_ , Steve wants to say, but his voice won't cooperate any more than his heavy eyelids will. Sam kisses him, and finally, finally, Steve opens his eyes, but Sam's already gone. Above him, there's a falcon, circling once in the sky, before disappearing into the clouds.

*

Opening his eyes a second time is like blinking water out of his vision. The world unblurs, and Steve Rogers wakes up with an old baseball game in his ears.

*

He runs, and thinks of nothing much at all, and runs.

He passes a man along the Tidal Basin; gives him a friendly warning, "On your left."

"Hey!" the man calls after him. "Hey! Steve!"

Steve stops then, because even though he's sometimes recognized, nobody ever talks to him like this. Nobody ever addresses him like he's just a guy they know.

Sam runs up to him, breathing hard, but smiling wide. "I thought that was you."

Steve blinks. "Am I dreaming again?"

Sam laughs. "I hope not. It'll make it a lot more fun when I get you naked."

The kiss is much like Steve remembers, but--better, somehow. Richer. More real. "I know you," Steve breathes into Sam's mouth, warmth spreading in his veins and his heart.

"Damn right you do," Sam says happily, and kisses Steve some more.

End.


End file.
